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Portland company installs wind turbine

A Portland business was recognized today as the first manufacturer in Maine to use a privately owned wind turbine to generate electricity.Paradigm Window Solutions, on Riverside Industrial Parkway, unveiled a wind turbine this afternoon that’s expected to generate as much as 800 kilowatt hours each month.

The turbine, which is visible from the Maine Turnpike, will save the window manufacturer about $850 a year in electricity costs. It also will reduce the demand for electricity from traditional power plants, which release greenhouse gases.

- Mainetoday

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

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GrowSmart advocacy updates

We’ve updated our Legislative Advocacy web page with an overview of our top priorities for this winter’s short session in Augusta. Learn more about the bills we’re supporting, their status, and how you can help them on their way to becoming law at www.growsmartmaine.org/programs/advocacy.asp.

Industrial Employment Down

Some unwelcome numbers on manufacturing.

Maine’s industrial employment shrank 2.6 percent over the past 12 months according to the 2008 Maine Manufacturers Register, a compilation of state industry published annually by Manufacturers’ News Inc. MNI reports Maine lost 2,120 industrial jobs and 24 manufacturers since December 2006, a greater loss compared to the slight employment drop MNI reported for the state a year ago.

The industrial directory’s last report cited a negligible industrial employment drop of 287 jobs between 2005 and 2006. Manufacturing employment had been declining in the state for several years prior, with MNI data showing a loss of 14,921 jobs or 15 percent between March 2001 and November 2005.
…
Sectors losing employment include furniture and textiles/apparel, with each sector down 14 percent. Paper and allied products are down 2.9 percent; printing and publishing, down 1.8 percent; and chemicals, down 7.1 percent. Sectors showing growth include industrial machinery and equipment, up 4.2 percent over the year. The instruments and related products sector, which includes search & navigation equipment, measuring devices and medical instruments, is up 459 jobs over the year (20 percent).

- ReliablePlant.com

Saco puts up wind turbine

A new wind turbine was erected Tuesday on Saco Island. The 30-foot high wind turbine will help power the city’s largest energy consumer, the wastewater treatment plant.In addition, a geothermal heating system is being installed to heat the building, as well as solar heat panels on a new grit-handling building.The city expects to save over 7,000 gallons of fuel a year, thanks to the new technology.

- WCSH6

UPDATE:  Here is some more info and photos – The Vigorous North 

More green building at UMaine

I was over at USM recently and they had an impressive poster pointing out the various ‘green’ efforts they have undertaken on campus. From geothermal heating to biofueled buses, they are clearly not just talking about being green. And now two UMaine Farmington buildings received LEED certification.

Two newly-constructed “green” buildings at University of Maine at Farmington have received official LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the United States Green Building Council.

The Education Center that houses the UMF College of Education, Health and Rehabilitation and Frances Allen Black Hall, a student residence building, offer financially viable alternatives to traditional building methods.

- MaineToday

Who is LURC?

With mass development plans and wind power projects being decided on, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission has been in the news a lot lately. Here is their “bio,” from the State’s website.

The Maine Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC or the Commission) was created by the Maine Legislature in 1971 to serve as the planning and zoning authority for the state’s townships, plantations and unorganized areas. The Commission has land use regulatory jurisdiction over these areas because they have no form of local government to administer land use controls, or they have chosen not to administer land use controls at the local level.

The Commission was established primarily in response to a recreational building and land development boom in these areas during the late 1960’s. Its purpose is to extend the principles of planning and zoning; to preserve public health, safety, and welfare; to encourage the well-planned, multiple use of natural resources; to promote orderly development; and to protect natural and ecological values.

The responsibility of guiding land use in these areas represents a unique challenge. The jurisdiction stretches over half the state, encompassing more than 10.4 million acres and the largest contiguous undeveloped area in the Northeast. This is a diverse area that includes several coastal islands and stretches from the downeast area across the western mountains and up to the Canadian border. While the area has an extensive private land management road network, it has few public roads and is sparsely populated. Most development is concentrated along the fringe of the jurisdiction, adjacent to more populous areas where services are more accessible.

Much of this area may seem like wilderness compared to most of the rest of the Northeast, but agricultural, forestry, and recreational activities clearly identify the region as a hardworking resource vital to the overall economy of the State. Residents and visitors alike place a premium on the unique natural values they find here.

- Maine.gov

Seaweed Harvesting

Orion Magazine takes a look at how one Maine resident is getting by.

During his lifetime John has been an orchard pruner, fisherman, lobsterman, apple picker, log roller, sawyer, and logger, and for more than forty years he has harvested seaweed on the coast of Maine. He started by renting a dory and rake for a dollar a day, and since then has retired several skiffs of his own. While rockweed—his present quarry—is certainly plentiful, it is not in great demand; it is used almost exclusively for animal supplements, a growing but still small market.

…

In 2007, the mechanical harvesters, now redesigned, reappeared but were equally inefficient. That was good for John, who was offered work; that year the processor had to have weed. Because it had not been picked the previous year, the rockweed had proliferated. The price was up too, to three cents a pound.

The mechanical harvesters are being redesigned again for 2008, when John will be eighty years old. Whether the machines will work in the coming year, and whether John’s boat and fortitude will last one more season, will be determined in the spring.

- Orion Magazine

Acadia visits up

Final 2007 numbers released on Monday by Acadia National Park indicate that visitation was up for a second straight year.

According to Acadia officials, an estimated 2.2 million visitors came to Acadia last year, a 5.7 percent increase from 2006. That represents 120,000 more visitors, with the largest increases coming in June, August and September; estimated visitation actually declined in July, however. Park officials noted that visits to Acadia fell from 1995-2005, but that this year’s gain brought numbers back up to 2004 levels.

- BarHarborTimes

Pittsfield to lose 150 jobs, but gain 200

A shoemaker is closing its factory, while a call center is opening a new center in Pittsfield.  The shoe company is moving the work to its Texas factory.

Nearly 150 people will lose their jobs when a shoe factory in Pittsfield closes.

SAS Shoemakers blames a reduced demand for penny loafers and other styles produced in the central Maine plant for the closing, which is scheduled to be complete by the end of the summer.

The San Antonio-based company says it makes sense to move the Maine production to  its expanded facilities in Texas.

- A.P.

Global Contact Services will open a new contact center in Pittsfield. The company provides telephone communications services to major national corporations in insurance, financial, telecom and political fields. The center’s target opening date is April 1.

“This is welcome news in a community that is going through unanticipated job losses with the announced closure of the SAS shoe manufacturing facility,” said Senator Collins (R-Maine). “I assured Mr. Alcorn that his company will find
terrific, hard-working employees in the area who are eager to help his business deliver the very best customer service.”

- WCSH6

Blueberries bringing in the green

Wild blueberry growers last summer harvested 76.9 million pounds worth an estimated $71.5 million, the New England office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Friday.The crop is the fourth-largest on record and state’s biggest since growers harvested 80.4 million pounds in 2003. The preliminary value is 20 percent higher than 2006 and nearly double the 2005 value of $38.9 million.

- MaineToday

Donating to New Hampshire

I wonder how much people pay in gas to save some money in N.H. I can understand wanting to save money, but like shopping at Wal-Mart, there is more to it than saving a few bucks.

A pair of researchers from a conservative think tank say Maine’s high taxes are sending shoppers across the border to New Hampshire.

The researchers from the Maine Heritage Policy Center determined that at least 10,000 cars crossed the border by counting license plates in the parking lots of several New Hampshire stores including Wal-Mart and Home Depot on a single Saturday last month.

Based on that, they say Mainers are saving $15 million in sales, cigarette and gasoline taxes each year on Saturdays alone at the seven stores included in the survey.

J. Scott Moody, one of the researchers, says Maine’s chief economic competitor is New Hampshire and that lowering taxes would make Maine retailers more competitive.

- WLBZ2

Methane from landfill

Maybe not the solution to our energy problems, but it helps.

That’s exactly what a new electrical generating facility at Pine Tree Landfill does. It captures methane gas from the decomposing trash.

“Just like a compost pile in your backyard, that waste decomposes,” Meagher said. “The landfill it’s decomposing without oxygen so a product of that is methane.”

Currently, most of the methane from the landfill is being burned off. But the new generator will put the gases to work, creating renewable energy.

“The methane is very much like natural gas in terms of a fuel,” Meagher told NEWS CENTER. “It goes to the engine, the engine runs, it turns a generator, and that generator produces electricity. And then it goes out onto the grid and into homes and businesses.”

- WLBZ2

R&D grants paying off

This bodes well for the recently passed bond measure.

Maine companies receiving state R&D grants have grown at five times the average business in the Pine Tree State during the last five years, according to a report to be released next week by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

… The 800 companies that received grants from bond programs also paid 15 percent higher wages and grew by an average of 9 percent last year — higher than the Maine average, Renault said. DECD research also found that since 2000, every dollar invested in R&D in Maine has generated a $10 return, said Renault.

- MassHighTech

More here.